I’m trying to think what player went the USL route to get into international soccer faster and has found success in a good league. Gomez from FCD was touted as one but he looks like he’s been pushed down Real Sociedad depth chart and is playing in their lower teams. Diego Luna tried to go to Europe from USL and ended up at RSL. What player do agents point to and convince players “see, this path works better”.
Also, while these departures hurt the Quakes’ pipeline, there are two or more players that come out winners. Murray would have been in competition with Alejandro Cano for minutes in the same position. Kohler would have also taken minutes from Israel Carrillo. Hopefully the Quakes value Cano and Carrillo and properly develop them to become terrific first team players.
So here’s where I wonder if we are hurting ourselves with Leitchi’s “college HG” thing. I get it - we got a burned a few times, but OTOH we are signing some 15-16’s pre-college. And I would guess that maturity issues are the exception and not the rule. The college guys are going to play 15-20 games a year and not always against the best competition. Not sure how they’re going to develop a lot during that time. That’s 4 critical years with largely stagnated development. And not sure the beer pong games in the dorm are going to give them the necessary maturity . Ethan Kohler is supposedly a 4.0+ student. Does he have “maturity issues”? Would we be better off signing these barely standout Stanford guys or US youth national team players Kohler and Murray?
What’s to keep Leitchie from telling them to go to college no matter how they develop? That seems to be the way things are headed. BTW Gomez started for US nats against Serbia and looked quite good IMO. I’d be happy to have him on the Quakes 1st team. We could really use the LB depth.
It says Kohler is attempting Laurel Springs High School. That is an online academy that the Quakes pay for their players so they can do the homework at their convenience and train/travel and play soccer. I don’t know how much the tuition is, but I’m sure Leitch has worked out a discount because of the number of students the Quakes bring to the school. I want to say the Quakes are paying over 7k a year per student. If they have been paying that for Kohler and Murray for several years you understand why they may be upset when they choose to bail. There is more than a zero chance that the Quakes may have offered homegrown deals to Barajas, Murray and Kohler before they defected to USL. MLS seems to offer the same terms to most (if not all) homegrowns. I believe the first contract is four years with a fifth team option. I have heard that a decent amount of players want shorter deals so they can go overseas at a younger age. Supposedly that is why Johan Gomez left Dallas to play in USL and then go to Spain. He wanted to be free at 18. Perhaps that’s the same plan sold to Barajas, Murray and Kohler.
Why wouldn't they take the MLS deal though? They can still go overseas any time with a transfer and they'd be in D1 soccer in the meantime. I think they see the writing on the wall - Leitchie's going with his "college homegrown" thing and apparently they decided they want to go pro sooner.
Was Kohler accepted to Stanford on a soccer scholarship and is refusing the opportunity? if so, seems shortsighted.
Seems like Stanford produces lots of pro soccer players, along with other amply compensated societal contributors. Short-sighted.
I have wondered about the strange saga of CJ Grey. He got called into a few youth national camps when he was with the Quakes’ academy. I don’t know if he was advised to go to college by Leitch but he did attend Cal and play soccer after graduation. What I wonder is if Leitch was willing to sign CJ to a homegrown deal in the spring of last year and CJ was hesitant to commit to a soccer career after getting his degree. I could see Leitch talking him into a “tryout” for the lifestyle with the compromise of a Next Pro deal and afterwards CJ saying “Yeah, this isn’t my future. Thanks for the memories but I’m going to make money instead”. I sensed the Quakes had no hard feelings when he left, almost like they expected it could happen. If CJ had indeed signed a homegrown deal when he was young like Jacob Akanyinge then he too could have had a similar experience as Akanyinge and Fuentes.
Depends on the individual as to whether or not it's short-sighted IMO. I don't think there is one correct path.
As I was saying, in the end each individual is different, and I don't think there is one correct path. Some players may be all about soccer and are their heart is just not into college, and they may be mature enough to handle pro soccer at 17 or whatever. My only concern is that we would shun those guys and say no, your path is college! I think that's potentially a wasted opportunity if (and only if) we think they are good enough to help our club in that non-college pathway. I'm sensitive to this idea of "falling back" / you need something to fall back on(!) vs. pursuing your dream. In some cases guys can do both, in some cases they may lose their passion and their edge in the "fallling back", in some cases they may realize that they're not quite talented enough and the falling back was good, etc.
I was not universalizing. Not talking about Clint Dempsey forsaking Texas Tech for EPL. Talking about Ethan Kohler without a Stanford degree so he can star with minor league Oakland Roots. He can’t get a soccer scholarship after going pro. And he likely can’t get in later without one. I think he’ll be worse off in the long run after his short and unmemorable pro career.
I get the impression that Leitch has some kind of analytical data that is supporting his idea of mature players having a bigger pro impact. I am not necessary in agreement with that, but I think it goes behind having a few local kids fail.
Could be, but do we have examples of these "college HGs" becoming impact players in MLS relative to non-college HGs? I'd like to see the data. Off the top of my head, it doesn't look promising for the college HG case. I know Nick Lima is one...
I don’t know if Leitch thinks it’s necessary to go all four years. TT and JT are examples of college home grown players that have played in MLS for a while.
I don't consider TT a "college HG" in the manner of Richmond, Cilley, etc. because he barely went to college. In the last 2 years, Leitch has signed 3 college grad HGs. Those are the players I'm talking about. Are they going to make an impact?
Well first of all, Ethan Kohler is not Clint Dempsey but he's not necessarily chopped liver either. He's in the US Youth Nats program (most recently U19 or U20), and may already have some connections in Europe. DM, Ethan Kohler, SJ - committed to Stanford but believe he is headed to Germany on a reserve contract when he turns 18 in May— Marcus Chai (@chai_asc) January 20, 2023 But regardless, I would always encourage young people to follow their passion. If he is all about soccer right now and not into college, I'd encourage him follow his passion. One great thing about this country is that you have many chances. When his soccer career is over there's nothing stopping him from doing whatever he wants to do after that. Yes, some day he may rue not taking the Stanford scholarship, but if he went to Stanford he might also rue foregoing a pro soccer career at an early age.
That is factually incorrect. When my son was playing U18 & U19 club, most of their competition during summer tournaments were teams largely comprised of college players.
Sure they could get some other games, but they're not going to be training and playing soccer essentially full time nearly year around. They're going to be going to Sociology 101 classes and writing term papers and playing beer pong for a good deal of their time during the year.
The mention of his 18th birthday makes it all make more sense. Assuming he has no EU passport, he can't sign in Europe until then. Oakland is probably giving him one season and then he goes to Germany. No way do the Quakes give him that kind of deal
It's definitely growing, I'm talking about players going from usl to europe. Here's a article from about 7 months ago talking a bit about it. https://the18.com/en/soccer-news/kobi-henry-makes-record-move-usl-championship-ligue-1